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When faced with great tragedies, the most overwhelming feeling is one of helplessness. What can we do to change the lives of the hurting for the better? How can we help when not even the strong can find solutions? The answer is not simple, but it is more accessible than we might believe if it includes empathy, courage, and the faith that any...

"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but to irrigate deserts." (C. S. Lewis)

If the death of our parents is a blow which makes “the very fabric of life…buckle and cave in,” the ageing of our parents resembles a classroom where we learn to give more than we are used to receiving.

We sometimes find ourselves surprised by how other people think about moral issues—how they distinguish right from wrong and choose to do what they think is right.

In some African communities, during the harsh dry season when food becomes scarce and mothers can no longer feed all their children, a tragic custom persists: some children are left in open-air enclosures to die of starvation.

JS: What is NAIDOC Week? Why is it significant?  DG: NAIDOC Week celebrates Indigenous culture—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, their achievements and their contribution to the nation.

When was the last time you threw yourself into something you weren’t sure you’d be good at? Recently, I was invited to join a women’s basketball team. Confession: I’m terrified of team sports. Since school, I’ve associated missed shots and undefended opponents with disappointment and anger. So my initial response was, “Nope, not happening.” 

What do a foul-mouthed, drug-abusing Canadian, a stately Frenchman from Bourg-en-Bresse and an American businesswoman whose prison nickname was “M Diddy”, all have in common?

For some people, suffering is temporary. For others, life itself can be a long series of painful blows. However, experience shows that recovery is possible even when people seem to be at the end of their tether.

The midlife crisis can cause an unpleasant shudder to those approaching this stage, a stage supposedly marked by anxiety, depression, a reassessment of life, disillusionment and the painful experience of all the internal and external changes that are taking place. But what if, despite the critical changes, midlife is a time of growth and joy rather than a succession of crises?

“No doubt equality of goods is just; but, being unable to cause might to obey justice, men have made it just to obey might. Unable to strengthen justice, they have justified might; so that the just and the strong should unite, and there should be peace, which is the sovereign good....” (Blaise Pascal, Thoughts)

A man is about as big as the things that make him angry – Winston Churchill

Some say that of all the opinions we can have in life, the most important is the opinion about ourselves.

In the age of the internet and the “global village,” an irrational fear taking hold in a small American town can easily go viral, reaching and affecting us all. Once online, news—whether true or false—can have a corrosive effect, leading us to feel cynical about the future and to hold low expectations for our leaders.

Fundamentalist movements, extremist and sectarian religious beliefs, manipulations of the mass of believers, conspiracy theories within religious sects, and other such threats, emphasise the need for critical thinking.